Chapter 5
SEVEN
I know the second she steps into the bar.
Before I turn to look.
Before she’s said a word or slipped into my peripheral vision.
I don’t know how I know—her perfume isn’t strong enough to carry the distance between us—but I just know . Where Binx McGuire is concerned, I have a sixth sense, and even though she doesn’t come over to say hello, I never lose track of where she is.
First, she drops a tray of Jello shots with Starling and her friends, who welcome the delivery with a cheer and a chorus of giggles. Then, she stops to speak to Wendy Ann, who’s hiding out by the snack table. Wendy Ann glances my way for a moment, but averts her gaze a second later, and when they’re done speaking, Binx doesn’t head my way. She pulls her phone from her small purse, texts something in response to whatever message she received, and starts for the back door.
She doesn’t so much as glance my direction before stepping into the beer garden that’s always a big draw in the summer.
But it’s closed now, and Chip, the bar manager, made us promise not to let anyone take drinks outside. He’s already put away the plasticware for the season and doesn’t want to deal with broken glass on the cobbled paving stones.
Binx didn’t have a glass, but when she doesn’t come back inside for several moments, I start to wonder what she’s up to.
Then I start to worry…
Because that’s what I do when it comes to Binx, even though she’s one of the strongest, most capable people I know.
It’s another sign that I shouldn’t cancel my date with Pammy for this weekend, even if I’m pretty sure there’s no long-term potential there. But Pammy’s a nice person, easygoing and fun, and she seems cool with taking things slow. Besides, the more I invest in other relationships, the less I’ll find myself turning to Binx.
I’ve let things with us get too close, too intense…
I almost kissed her again at the wedding, and I’ve been having dreams about stripping that see-through sweater off her with my teeth ever since.
I shouldn’t go check on her. She’s fine. She’s a big girl and the beer garden is fenced in. Literally nothing could have happened to her back there. I’m being overprotective.
I make another Bette Davis, Mom’s signature drink, and grit my teeth through the first karaoke performance, a John Denver number, crooned by Binx’s father, that reminds me way too much of Binx. It’s Annie’s Song, a ballad for Denver’s wife that talks about the way she “fills up his senses, like a night in the forest.” It’s so close to what Binx does to me—especially when we’re on a climb or taking our mountain bikes out on the trails—that it hurts a little.
It also makes me scan the room again for Binx, but there’s no sign of her. She must still be outside…but why?
I know she isn’t a huge fan of karaoke, but she loves her brother and according to the monitor, Christian is due onstage in a couple more songs.
“I’m going to run to the men’s room, Mom,” I murmur after she’s pushed two Marilyn Monroes across the bar. “Can you swing it alone for a few minutes?”
“Of course, I can,” she says, with a huff. “I’m a professional, baby. Take your time and mingle a little bit after. I’ve got this, and you’ve been working way too hard.”
I give a non-committal grunt and duck under the bar at the far end. Nodding hello to Tessa, the one who called this morning, begging Mom to fill in for the bartender who bailed on the event last minute, I bypass the restrooms and head straight outside.
Moving past the whiskey barrel planters, where a few withering mums fight for survival amongst a knot of weeds, I step onto the large open patio, expecting to find Binx talking on her phone or something. But she’s nowhere to be seen. I frown and spin in a slower circle, searching the trees by the fence for signs of a feminine leg dangling from the branches, but she isn’t up a tree, either.
She’s also not behind the wood panel concealing the dumpsters or in the smoking area. The last part, I’m glad about—I’ve been giving her shit for smoking clove cigarettes for months, even though she only has one or two a week—but still…
Where the hell is she?
I’m about to jump the fence to check the other side, when I hear a low chuckle and a man’s voice murmuring, “Fuck, woman, that tickles. Your fingers are freezing.” It sounds like the guy’s around the corner, so I move in that direction, spotting the back entrance to the kitchen just as a woman’s voice says, “Yeah, well, it’s October, dude. Get used to it. Only going to get colder from here on out. Now hold still.”
My ears perk up and a scowl claws into my forehead.
That was Binx. I would know her voice anywhere.
But what the hell is she doing hanging out in the kitchen with some dude in the middle of her brother’s wedding shower? And why is she touching him with her “freezing fingers?”
“I’m serious,” she adds with a husky chuckle, “the more you wiggle, the longer this is going to take, and we don’t have much time.”
The more he wiggles?
What the actual fuck?
Is the seeing someone? Or just…fucking around? Fucking around with someone she likes enough to give him a hand job while her entire family is in the next room?
“I’m not wiggling, I’m just ticklish,” comes the male voice, bringing a full-fledged snarl to my lips. “You know that. Even when you were sticking it in me for the little one, I couldn’t stop laughing.”
Sticking it in him? Sticking what in him?
And what the hell is Binx doing with some thin-skinned, ticklish motherfucker who wants her to stick things in him? That’s not what Binx wants in a lover. I would bet every acre of my hard-won land on that.
We’ve obviously never slept together, but her eyes tell me she wants to be pushed up against a wall and taken by a man who’s not afraid to show her what she does to him. She wants to be held down hard while she gives as good as she gets. She wants passion and intensity from an equal, not some wimp who can’t make it through a hand job without getting a case of the giggles.
“Oh baby, yeah,” he says, giggling like a psychopath. “Scribble on that back fat.”
The words don’t make sense, but it doesn’t matter. They still make me see red—vibrant, crazy-making red. The next thing I know, I’m charging through the door into the back of the kitchen, expecting to encounter Binx getting it on with some employee of the bar.
What would I have done if my expectations had been met?
I have no idea.
Getting jealous and possessive with a woman I’ve pushed away with both hands wouldn’t have been cool. It would have been a dick move, and I do my best not to be a dick, especially to the women in my life. Women put up with enough shit from the male population, and I have a daughter. I’m very invested in being a good example to other men as to how the feminine half of the species should be treated—namely, with respect.
And it isn’t respectful to interfere with a friend’s sexual choices, even if they are making those choices mere feet from a family function, where their father was recently singing 70’s soft rock.
But Binx isn’t giving a chef a hand job or feeling up a dishwasher. No, she’s…drawing. Drawing on Pierce Livermore, the owner of The Whiskey Bar and Grill, a regular at our gym, and the guy I call Liver wurst behind his back because he’s the worst.
He’s the kind of guy who spends half his workout taking selfies in the mirror, never cleans the equipment after he’s sweated all over it, and—worst of all—stands around naked after his shower, making small talk about the latest NHL game with his saggy balls dangling down to mid-thigh. He also talks shit about women, usually about the college girls who come to lift while they’re on break, but he’s made repulsive comments about Binx before, too.
Of course, that was before I glared him down at the sinks and told him to keep her name out of his mouth.
Since then, he’s been well-behaved when it comes to my best friend.
Or so I thought…
Right now, he isn’t behaving himself. When I burst through the door, he’s craning his neck to stare at Binx’s ass in her skintight bell-bottoms, while she doodles on him with a Sharpie, too engrossed in her work to realize he’s being a pervert.
Then, she’s too shocked by me bursting through the door.
“Oh my God, what the fuck?” she says, surging to her feet so fast that she hits Pierce’s chin with the top of her head and they both curse in pain.
“I heard you talking and thought you were in trouble,” I blurt out, catching a glimpse of what looks like a pirate ship on Pierce’s back before he tugs his shirt down.
“No, I’m fine. Jesus. Sorry about smashing your face,” she says to Liverwurst, touching a hand to his chest.
I instantly want to snatch her hand away and spray it down with hand sanitizer, and that’s before Pierce flexes, making his pecs jump beneath his long-sleeved t-shirt.
“It’s okay,” he says, rubbing his chin with one hand as he touches the side of her waist with the other.
“No, it’s not. Hands off,” I snap, the words out of my mouth before I can think better of them.
Instantly, I know I’ve fucked up, but even I’m not prepared for the suddenness of the storm that sweeps into Binx’s eyes.
“What?” she demands, in a tone that makes it clear, the word isn’t a question. It’s a statement on my epic tomfoolery.
I lift my hands in surrender and take a breath. “I just meant…” I trail off, my thoughts spinning, sending up sprays of thought gravel.
What did I mean? What? My improvisational skills aren’t great at the best of times, and these are not the best of times. Not with Pierce standing there looking all smug and expectant, like a kid about to watch his bully get pummeled under the bleachers.
But I’m not the bully here—he is. He’s the one who talked about Binx’s “rack” and how he wouldn’t mind “tapping that ass” even though, at the time, she didn’t have any hair to grab, while he was “giving it to her” from behind. But I can’t very well call him out on that to his face, not in front of Binx. We all go to the same gym and run in the same social circles and Bad Dog is a small town. Spilling the dirt like this would make things uncomfortable for all of us.
I have to think of something else to say.
Some reasonable excuse.
Think, asshole, think! For fuck’s sake.
But I’ve got nothing.
Nothing but one ridiculous idea, it looks like I’m going to have to run with…